Museum Embroiled in Fight Over a Painting’s Ownership
May 3, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
A Connecticut woman and the Norton Simon Art Foundation are in a court battle to prove who owns a disputed $24-million piece of art on display at the museum run by the Simon organization, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Marei von Saher, whose father-in-law was a Dutch-Jewish art dealer, says she is the rightful owner of the Nazi-looted paintings of Adam and Eve, which date to the 16th century. But the Simon museum, in Los Angeles, which bought the works for $800,000 in 1970 and 1971, says it did nothing wrong in purchasing the paintings.
The key point in the dispute revolves around the paintings’ ownership throughout the last century. Another Times article reports that the foundation and Ms. Von Saher engaged in mediation in 2005 and early this year, but could not reach an agreement.
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